The World Is Too Much With Us

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Recommended: Poetry, petrarch sonnet style

Nature’s brilliance
During the literary Romanticism period, there was a big upsurge in the attention and importance of nature. This is because the mavericks and writers of this time laid great prominence not only upon the splendor and grandeur of nature, but the sovereignty of the natural world. To a certain extent, these romanticists viewed nature the way a devout Christian would view Jesus. A great example of this borderline zealous obsession with nature is beautifully displayed in “The World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth. This is a well celebrated Petrarchan sonnet with a rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA CDCD. Typically, a Petrarchan sonnet is a combination of an octave and a sestet. As a matter of course, the first eight lines (octave) …show more content…

Saying in the second and third lines that as humans are “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/Little we see in Nature that is ours.” Through this alone, a negative light is shone upon the excessive materialism of individuals.
Due to daily motions and the growing industry, society had strayed away …show more content…

This can be highly linked and supported by the fact that the people’s heart dwelled in mundane/substantial objects than in nature and beauty. The speaker even solidified this thought in the eighth and ninth lines saying that “For this, for everything, we are out of tune;/It moves us not.” Being out of tune refers to being out of sync or disharmonious; therefore, these two lines describe the discontinuity that exists between humans and nature. In all, through use of ethos and pathos, the whole essence of the Romantic Movement is conveyed by urging society to feel mortified, guilty, and shameful for how they perceive nature. Or rather, how they do not perceive nature.
In order to escape from the negligence of nature, the speaker wildly suggests adopting the lifestyle of Pagans. Lines nine through ten openly demonstrate this idea, “Great
God! I’d rather be/A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn.” The speaker is willing to live a life without God in order to be part of a society that

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